30 November 2011 5:00 PM

Celebrity Politics

"OhmyGod," squealed the woman in the supermarket checkout line, "Kourtney Kardishian is pregnant again." When I looked her up, I discovered that Ms Kardashian--described vaguely as model, actress, and socialite--has not married the father of her two children. But neither her marital state nor her profession make much of a difference today. She's a celebrity, not because she has won a battle, held a high public office, invented a cure for the common cold, or painted a picture. Celebrities are famous for being famous.

"And that Herman Cain," gushed the woman's friend, "Now a new woman--what's her name, Ginger White?-- says she's been his mistress for 13 years." Like Courtney Kardashian, Herman Cain has never anything worthy of note except find a way of cranking out junkfood filth at a more cost-effective rate than his competitors. In the Republican Party, it does not take much to be a celebrity who is famous for being famous.

The second woman's husband chimed in. "Cain's mistress is an old bag. But did you see the pictures of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show? That Miranda Kerr, with her $2 million bra is h-o-o-tt." Looking up Miranda Kerr, I must confess, was more entertaining than reading up on Herman Cain's sordid "love" life. Cain's supporters all point out his accusers are all women who have had financial and personal troubles. It apparently does not occur to them that this is what the police would call and MO: Many dirty old men deliberately target women in a vulnerable position, because they are so much easier to take advantage of. Not that Cain is necessarily guilty.

The first woman--the Kardashian admirer--finds a seque for what she wants to talk about. "Speaking of Herman Cain, did you see that Patrice Oneal died? It's tragic--only 41 years old. Was he funny!"

I'd liked to sample some of Oneal's choicest jokes but even the Daily Mail, presumably, has standards. Every other word would have to be treated as "b----h" or "f--k" or "p----" Here's a clean one that illustrates the sublimity of the American comic imagination:

'They hate us in other countries. Because we’re arrogant. We don’t know the name of nobody else’s president. Other countries know G.W. (Bush) They know him. But why they hate us because we don’t know and we don’t care. Because they’ll be like, “Hey, do you know the name of my countries leader?” And you’ll be like, “No.”“Well, his name..”“No. Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to hear that.”'

Someday, if you want to figure out what's up with Americans, just check out Google News or Entertainment Tonight or the birthdays they list on our equivalent of the BBC, National Public Radio. The really important people in USA are rockstars, actors, and athletes; anorexic models, drug-addicted fashion designers who say bad things, serial killers, and would-be assassins.

Stardom is amoral and self-defining. It doesn't matter how many lightbulbs (Branko Crnogorac) you had to eat or how man disgusting things you have done in public (Marilyn Manson, Ozzie Osbourne), once you have hit the front page, you can hope some day for your own reality TV show.

Lawyers for John Hinckley (you know, the kid who shot President Reagan) are arguing that their client should be given more free time to spend with his mother. On one recent visit when he said he was going to a movie, Hinckley actually went to a book store to read up on presidential assassinations. In his mind, he is still a celebrity. If he had only spent more time on the firing range, he'd be in the big time with Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth. As it is he's an also ran.

Lately, the really big stories have been about football star Tim Tebow praying on the field. Message to Tebow: If you really love Jesus, quite playing a violent game that damages the brains of hundreds of players and noticeably lowers the moral tone of people who watch it. If you go to the wrong websites, you will learn that today Kaley Cuoco, Elisha Cuthbert, and Ben Stiller are celebrating birthdays. I think I know who Ben Stiller is--Jerry Stiller's son, right? What you won't find out is that it is also the birthday of Gregory of Tours, Andrea Palladio, and Philip Sidney. Like, you know, people who did something.

"Forget about Patrice Oneal and those celebrity tarts," objects the wife of Victoria's Secret connoisseur. "This political campaign is all about how to get rid of Obama. Cain is through, and that only leaves Romney and Gingrich. I'm for Gingrich because he is so smart, and, besides, Romney invented Obamacare."

Actually, Romneycare and Obamacare were Gingrich's brainchildren, but no matter. This is America, and Obama's frequent tergiversations are all yesterday's news.

Whoever wins the GOP nomination and whoever is elected President of the United States, it will mean nothing. George W and BO were both political celebrities created by their parties and by the media controlled by their parties. For Republicans today, the only question on the table is whether they prefer the trim former governor of Massachusetts or the Pillsbury doughboy with the poofy hair and crazy talk, the Mormon or the phony Catholic, the monogamous member of a once polygenous sect or the serial adulterer.

We all have better things to do with our time. Did you know that tomorrow is the birthday of Stephanie Mortimer--you know, Rumpole's daughter?

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"Ah, it's a queer world." The editors of the Daily Mail have the power to make policies governing the moderation of comments, and writers have the freedom to choose to write on the subjects that happen to interest them, trivial or not. As an editor, when I receive complaints of this type, I generally respond: "Start your own magazine." I don't live in the UK and am hardly the right person to comment on the insanities of life in Britain, and for those who are not entirely obsessed with their own identity questions, the moral and spiritual degradation of our celebrity culture is vastly more significant than racial conflict..

Few readers of the Daily Mail are familiar with the great American novelist, George Garret, though Garret's best known novels are a trilogy set in Elizabethan England (beginning with Death of a Fox). His least known book, Poison Pen, is cast as a series of letters to celebrities. Putting on his cap and bells, as George used to say, he was able to subject the hollowness of American life to a deeper scrutiny than any social critic has been able to do. In one of the last letters to a celebrity model, Garret's prankster tells her that he had heard her on a talk show saying that no one knew the real her. No, he replies, there is no real you, only the impression created by the media.

I apologize for this tedious justification of a piece of social humor, but there is more to be learned from Aristophanes and W.S. Gilbert than from hysterical racialists or political sociologists.

Yes, our multicultural, diverse, upsidedown world smacks us in the face, continuously. But hope, like faith and charity, lives forever and calls us to humbly pray and fast, casting out evil.

Being an average American, living among the average, I have hope in the daily sacrifices that I see many people make, such as going to daily Mass, caring for sick family members. Will God find one good man who humbly seeks truth and justice? I have to believe, "Yes."

First, I note "comments are moderated by the author". That's rather rich, isn't it? One gets to censor one's own critics.

Second, though I agree with the cultural (and more deeply, both racial and dysgenic) degradation of the American people - Brits are even worse, however - I have to wonder why this column never addresses anything really worthwhile, really controversial, say, like the fascist arrest, and Soviet psychiatric 'interrogation', of a young British mother on a tram, loudly denouncing the multiracial filth with whom she's been forcibly integrated. The lady, one Emma West, was simply venting the opinions as to the new 'multicultural', garbage England that has been imposed upon her and her national kinsmen without their approval.

Perhaps an alleged conservative like Dr. Fleming should discuss serious matters, like the racial causes of the decline of the West, instead of producing facile ruminations on its less significant symptoms.

I can recognise Palladian architecture when I see it, on a good day anyway. I was aware that Gregory of Tours was a historian and have wanted to read some of his works for years, but alas, I still know too little about him. The name of Philip Sydney was vaguely familiar, and I recognised the painting of him on Wikipedia. Using Wikipedia to look up anything is bad enough. It's so hard to cure oneself of being an American yokel.

We need a new version of AA, with a vow of non-celebrity and no celebrity worship.

Seriously, hearing recent conversations between fellow Americans really drove home to me once again just how hopeless the average American really is. They know nothing, can't think their way out of a paper sack, and think they are knowledgeable and unbiased, no matter how asinine their opinions or profound their ignorance and lack of mental depth.

It really is disconcerting to think that I have to live amongst people like that, and it hurts because, after all, it's my country. Oh, America! Oh, Dixie! How far you have fallen!

The people (you know, we the people--from slaves to celebrities--including the wealthiest of us, former coin counters and snake oil salesmen) go where 'we' are led...by the wholly owned monolithic media in behalf of our/the civilization's subversion. We don't know any better, how could we, does a fish know it's in water? It's like Hollywood actors don't even know, they're paid to be famous; it's an industry, also today a subversive industry. What's to worry-?-we have 'smart' phones. By comparison even Nero is looking good. When's his birthday, or Stalin's? Well, all I have to do is google it. Progress, it's a wonderful thing.

And whichever girlyman the Republicans run, he will not beat the Democrat's girlyman (Obama) or girlygirl (Hillary - if she challenges in the Primaries). Maybe instead of the long election cycle we should have a football game between the Republicans and the Democrats, with the captain of the winning team becoming President for four years. We could call it the President Bowl and play it a RFK Stadium.

On this day, in the waning hours thereof, I am reminded that this is St. Andrew's Day, remembered by many Christians and a good number of us Southerners. We cannot petition the idols of the tabloids; however, we can beseech St. Andrew: Ora Pro Nobis! Therein lies our hope.

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Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming is editor of the American monthly, Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture. He has written several books on ethics (The Morality of Everyday Life) and politics (Socialism, The Politics of Human Nature) and contributed to newspapers, magazines, and academic journals on both sides of the Atlantic. In an earlier life he received a Ph.D. in classics and professed Greek and Latin at several universities.